Art has always been constantly evolving since the time it began, which dates now to almost 30,000 years ago. Art history can be studied in many ways and it is broken down into multiple disciplines and styles. These start from Prehistoric, to Ancient, Greek up to Contemporary Art. In this paper two different pieces of art, from different time periods, will be compared and discussed. Both of them are portraits. A portrait is defined as the representation of a particular person. Portraits have always been more than just a record. They have been used to show the power, importance, virtue, beauty, wealth, taste, learning or other qualities of the sitter (“Portrait”, 2016). The two portraits compared are Fra Filippo Lippi, Portrait of a Woman with
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It is painted on wood with tempera. At its time, around the 1440’s, the painting was very innovative. It was when portraiture emerged in Italy as its own type of painting. Before that, it used to be a part of greater compositions and most of them used to be only of a biblical matter. It was very typical in the renaissance portrait to see the subject from the profile because it was a part of the revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient times. Many coins from Greece and Rome had survived, and they showed people in profile. Since the face of the sitter is not looking at the viewer it was difficult to convey the sitter’s emotions and facial expressions. Instead Lippi uses symbolism. You can see the woman being painted is wealthy, …show more content…
You can see in this painting tenebroso, the dark background, which was commonly used in the Baroque period to isolate the main figure from distracting elements in the background. This makes the subject, in this case, the young girl stand out more. He also makes the use of chiaroscuro in the girl’s clothing, towards her back, but her face is filled with light. In Vermeer’s paintings, there seems to be sense of passage, something momentary. With the subtleness of light, he creates intimacy, and engagement with the sitter. Although the girl is not as pretty as the Girl with a Pearl Earring, “the adolescent version”, she still emanates a moon-like beauty that becomes most appreciable and alluring only when observing the real
It is painted on wood with tempera. At its time, around the 1440’s, the painting was very innovative. It was when portraiture emerged in Italy as its own type of painting. Before that, it used to be a part of greater compositions and most of them used to be only of a biblical matter. It was very typical in the renaissance portrait to see the subject from the profile because it was a part of the revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient times. Many coins from Greece and Rome had survived, and they showed people in profile. Since the face of the sitter is not looking at the viewer it was difficult to convey the sitter’s emotions and facial expressions. Instead Lippi uses symbolism. You can see the woman being painted is wealthy, …show more content…
You can see in this painting tenebroso, the dark background, which was commonly used in the Baroque period to isolate the main figure from distracting elements in the background. This makes the subject, in this case, the young girl stand out more. He also makes the use of chiaroscuro in the girl’s clothing, towards her back, but her face is filled with light. In Vermeer’s paintings, there seems to be sense of passage, something momentary. With the subtleness of light, he creates intimacy, and engagement with the sitter. Although the girl is not as pretty as the Girl with a Pearl Earring, “the adolescent version”, she still emanates a moon-like beauty that becomes most appreciable and alluring only when observing the real